Gender Identity in Consumer Behavior Research: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2001 by M, Kay

Executive Summary

Gender Identity in Consumer Behavior Research: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

The process of consumption has long been associated with sex and gender, thus, it comes as no surprise that consumer researchers often examine the effects of these variables on consumer behaviors. It also comes as no surprise that much is known about sex and gender and how they impact buying and consuming activities. Yet there is one gender-related variable, gender identity, that has both intrigued and perplexed consumer behavior researchers for over four decades.

Gender identity, sometimes referred to as an individual's psychological sex, has been defined as the "fundamental, existential sense of one's maleness or femaleness" (Spence 1984, p. 83). Since gender is culturally derived, gender identity is similarly rooted in cultural understandings of what it means to be masculine or feminine (Firat 1991; Lerner 1986). For many years, sex and gender were thought to be inseparable--that is, men were masculine and women were feminine. But what consumer behavior researchers, among others, recognized long ago was that some men were more feminine than masculine while some women were more masculine than feminine. In the postmodern culture in which we now live, this separation of gender from sex is even more apparent.

Untangling the intricate threads of masculinity and femininity began in the 1930s when the first assessment of gender identity was attempted (Terman and Miles 1936). It was not until the 1960s, however, that gender identity made its first appearance in consumer-related studies (Aiken 1963; Vitz and Johnston 1965), and with the emergence of new conceptualizations of gender identity in the mid-1970s (e.g., Bem 1974; Spence, Helmreich, and Stapp 1975), the study of gender identity in consumer research intensified, continuing into the 1980s and 1990s. Even when criticism of the most frequently used gender identity measures, the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, surfaced in the 1980s (see, e.g., Gill et al., 1987; Marsh and Myers 1986), inclusion of gender identity in consumer research continued unabated.

However, significant gender identity findings in consumer research have been rare, causing some as early as the mid-80s to suggest that the inclusion of gender identity in consumer research is unproductive and should be abandoned (Roberts 1984). Several reasons have emerged to explain the lack of significant findings. For example, some have suggested that the operationalization of gender identity has stymied research (Palan, Areni, and Kiecker 1999); contributing to operationalization problems may be the inappropriate use of terms resulting in conceptual ambiguity. Gould (1996) suggested that the inappropriate interpretation/application of gender identity to consumer research variables produced contradictory findings. In more recent literature, the potential contribution of gender identity research to the understanding of consumer behavior has been questioned since the meanings of masculinity and femininity have blurred (Firat 1993).

Given these concerns, the purpose of this paper is to present a thorough review of consumer behavior studies in the marketing literature that have examined gender identity; it should be noted that the review has a Western (i.e., North American) bias, since the studies have all been based in Western societies. Despite a previous review of gender identity research in consumer behavior (Stern 1988), an updated review is necessary, not only to include consumer behavior studies that have been published since 1988, but also to examine the merits of gender identity research given the scholarship advances that have been made in this area in the past decade. The review is grounded in the theoretical models of gender identity with the specific goal of providing a framework to address the question: "To what extent are differences in gender identity useful in explaining meaningful variations among consumers?" Addressing this question will help clarify whether enthusiasm or skepticism about gender identity research in consumer behavior is warranted, and, if warranted, what direction(s) future research should take.

Terminology in Gender Identity Research

As with any carefully conceived research project, a literature review requires a clear and unambiguous definition of the subject under analysis. With respect to this particular literature review, this requires not only understanding what gender identity is, but also understanding how it is related to, yet different, from other sex- and gender-related terminology. This is especially important because several different terms, signifying essentially the same thing, have been used over the course of gender identity research in consumer behavior. For example, sex-role identity (Kahle and Homer 1985), sex-role orientation (Gentry and Doering 1979), and sex-role self-concept (Stern 1988) are all terms referring to the measurement of gendered personality traits in men and women that have been used in consumer research. It was not until the 1990s that the term gender identity saw more consistent use (Fischer and Arnold 1994; Gainer 1993; Kempf, Palan, and Laczniak 1997; Palan, Areni, and Kiecker 1999, 2001).